DM2009 Winner Sees Public-Private Gap on Climate Adaptation

In my country of Peru, climate adaptation planning at a national level isn't effective.  In fact, there aren’t any plans to speak of.

It would be great if all civil society groups could help to build an effective national plan that would produce results benefiting people and resources.  But this will require a process, and there is a lot to be done.

This not only a problem for government.  Even among NGOs there are factors that limit the participation of all organizations and people.

In our experience as a small organization, we were able to bring change in a concrete way at the regional level after a long and big effort. Our achievements were ignored during a long time by the main public institutions and big NGO.  Only after 10 years of hard work with scarce resources are we beginning to see results in terms of a change in the attitude of politicians that govern the region.

We are supporting in a very important way the regional political environment. But it is necessary to show how a small project like ours, which is being co-financed by DM2009, will contribute to this objective.

(Vecco [photo above] was team leader on the winning DM2009 finalist project in Peru that  will use its US$200,000 grant to help1,500 indigenous people in the Peruvian Amazon better manage their agricultural production systems, protect their forest, and increase their income.)